Greedy Goblin

Monday, October 8, 2012

Bounties: the rise of alliance PvE/industry

The bounty system is a total disaster now. If you set a bounty on someone, he'll claim it himself on an alt. Honestly I can't imagine how could this system be implemented without being totally exploited. But CCP is on the plan to do do it in the winter expansion. For this post let's assume they succeed and placing bounty on you would mean that someone who is not your alt/friend can get profit by killing you.

The interesting thing is that the new bounty system allows you to place bounties on corporations and alliances. Then killing the members of these corps/alliances would earn the killers money. While hunting Randomguy#124324 for a few million ISK you can get for his cruiser is clearly not a profession, but for roaming PvP gangs it would be very profitable to go to the land of an alliance that has a bounty on it. Even if the payment is just 10% of the ship price, a ratting Tengu kill could provide 100M ISK. The effect of such bounties would be devastating to the targeted alliances. They would be hunted by dedicated PvP-ers. Also, killing them in fleets would be an income source, so it would be much easier to get pilots to a CTA against them. If the bounty system would work and the bounties would be non-irrelevant, the alliance with bounty on its head would find many-many enemies.

If the bounty system would be implemented this way, the age of the AoE-doomsdaying titans would be back: an established, rich alliance can crush its enemies by placing a nice bounty on them. All you have to do is place a hundred billion on them and freelancer small gangs, sov-less "elite" alliances and such will make sure that in a month or two you can SBU their whole region, they won't be undocking even in an Ibis. This can of course be speeded up by sending out fleets where you are practically paying your pilots for killing them. Please note that the payment rate couldn't be higher than 20-30% to avoid exploiting, so 1B bounty would mean 3-5B damage to the enemy.

Placing 50M bounty on the "mean bad guy" who killed your AFK hauler on Rancer is one thing. Placing a meaningful bounty on an alliance that permanently lure non-sov holding PvP groups to their land costs hundreds of billions. Not everyone can afford it. However an alliance with stable income can. Ratting tax, moon income, renters: they all provide funds not only to reimburse fleets but to destroy your enemies. Definitely better usage of funds than buying supers that stay logged off. Having enough bounty funds would be a kind of "IWIN" feature, since EVE is being EVE, as long as you can pay, there will surely be someone who gladly go out and claim this money by killing your enemies.

The largest change this will cause is most probably the end of the renter system. Practically all coalitions excluding CFC has renters as income source, HBC trying to build one now. Putting a bounty on GSF, -A- or PL is probably not the best idea as they might even enjoy the fights and their morale increase can outweight their ISK losses. However the renters pay ISK especially to be left alone with CTAs or other PvP. They just want to rat in peace. Put a bounty on them and they'll be back in highsec in a few weeks (where you need to suicide gank them for the bounty which will be non-profitable).

For EVE trade and industrial discussions join Goblinworks channel.
If you want to get into nullsec, go to the official forum recruitment thread and type the name of the alliance you seek into the search and start reading. I'm in TEST by the way.
Saturday morning report: 174.8B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)
Sunday morning report: 175.3B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)
Monday morning report: 177.0B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)

3 comments:

It's just a question of making it impossible to have your friend shoot you to cash in on your bounty be profitable. If they can do that (as you say) it should be great content as it:-Makes money obviously important in nullsec combat.-Encourages small small combat that a lot of people at least claim to love.-Gives an in to small groups.-Makes entertaining PR stunts (which are some of the best bits of Eve) potentially useful.

As someone who is on the fence about joining EVE (more a time thing than any other reason) I have been reading your blog with some interest. Looking at the Idea it seems logical and would bring a new dynamic to the ability of someone with money, and the ability to make it quickly to affect the tides of war in an appreciated way.

From that point of view its perfect for the rich industrialist who wants to control Null. You have the funds to put billion dollar bounties on your enemies, and will get more by selling them replacement ships and components. You will even make some of it back when the PVP'ers eventually get out flanked for whatever reason and need a new ship.

The question I have is wouldn't this type of action, in the end, hurt your other goal of getting more people into null and redressing the trade imbalance there. This is a real change that would make null more dangerous for the industrialists, miners , and ratters you seek to attract in other posts. to use the analogy; This is an incredibly effective stick against poor play. what is the carrot to draw the non pvp centric players then?